Paper Wings

Kissing

The following night, Remus sat on a rock apart from the gathering around a large bonfire. Alim's twigs, the nomads said with reverence, gave the brightest light and would burn for days without turning to ash. In the flickering light, Remus opened the Prankster's Guide and flicked absently back and forth through the pages. Pyramidal Methods of Dungbomb Preservation; Chapter Thirteen: Superstitions that are True; Wand Drills, how to draw faster than the Slytherin; Chapter Seven: Survival in the Wilderness, because sometimes it's the only way to avoid being caught. After the sections on the various wild landscapes most useful for hiding, from Forbidden Forest to Urban Alley, and a section entitled Padfoot describes wild berries not suitable for human consumption and what happens when he eats them anyway, the bent binding fell open to page 72. Body Heat, the stranded wizard's friend OR What happens in the Forest, stays in the forest.

Remus looked up quickly and blinked.

Kamilah was dancing in her red and gold scarves; the very image of an exotic Gryffindor, she outshone the other dancers around the fire. Her body undulated with the rhythms of the music, and the circle of men watched, mesmerised. Over the orange flames, she caught Remus' eye, tilted her head back to the stars, and languidly shut her kohl-lined lids.

Remus almost laughed, suddenly reminded of other closed eyes, many years before. He had kissed a girl once. Or rather, he'd stood frozen in abject terror, not unlike a marmot, as Emily O'Malley, brown frizzy hair and all, squeezed her eyes shut and leaned her face closer and closer to his. He didn't remember much about the kiss--only that his twelve-year-old self had wanted to ask Emily if her mouth was always so wet, and that he had been thoroughly relieved when a twelve-year-old Sirius had hit him in the face with a snowball, effectively frightening Emily away. Shivering as the snow melted under his collar, he had chased Sirius down and tackled him in a drift, wondering why anyone would bother kissing when playing in the snow was so much more fun.

And he remembered, years later, opening the front door on New Year's Eve as a cold, dark figure tumbled in on top of him.

"Sirius, for love of the-- what are you doing here?"

"Y-y-your par-r-rents home?"

"They're out."

"I- I- Inside, n- now. Can I?"

"Of course."

He remembered pulling a broom from the stiff fingers, helping Sirius up the stairs and into the cosy bedroom.

"Y- y- your par- parents won't mind -d -d?"

"My parent's wouldn't turn away a dragon if it was freezing to death -- I wonder if dragons--"

"C- c- cold Remus, now."

"Right. Let's get you out of these wet things. What'd you do, fly through a cloud?"

"Couldn't spend-d-d an-nother n-n-night there. On to the-the Pot-t-ters by morning."

Suppressing a twinge of jealousy, Remus had rummaged through his clothing, helped Sirius from his jacket, noticing the ice crystals on the buttons, and turned away when Sirius let his trousers fall to the floor. He folded back the duvet, and helped a pyjama-clad Sirius into his bed.

"St-ill cold. Be-e a mate? Like in the-e-e For-r-est. M-m-m-ember-er?"

He remembered rubbing Sirius' shivering fingers until the teeth stopped chattering, remembered learning from the blue white lips that kisses could be achingly perfect things, and remembered the agonised weeks that had followed, before they pretended to agree that what happened in an icy delirium would never be thought of again.

***

Remus slapped the book shut. He looked up at Kamilah, swaying in the light of the flames, and at the camels grazing in the distance. Slowly, he relaxed his grip on the book. The binding fell open to page 72. What happens in the Forest stays in the Forest, the words Remus had pored over the rest of his Christmas holiday. He carefully tore the page out of the book and held it in the night-time breeze. Opening his fingers, he wondered how far it would flutter across the desert before disintegrating or being eaten by a desperate dromedary. A stray breath of air lifted the paper from his hands and held it hovering before him. At the last moment, however, he snatched the paper from the air and tucked it back into the book. From the breast pocket of his robes, he drew another tattered square of parchment.

Find the Rat. For me.

He hadn't forgotten. Though the trail was months old and Peter could be anywhere in the world, Remus would not be distracted any longer, he would continue to follow. He would start again tomorrow, and turn away from the mystery of the dementors at the spring. It seemed Alim did not want him to meddle anyway. Heavily, he walked back to the tent and fell into a deep sleep.

***

"I'm going soon."

"No, not yet"

"I need to leave now. I need to find him."

"Not yet. There is something here you haven't done."

"What?"

A scream rent the still dawn air.

***

Remus woke, heart pounding with the vivid echo of his dream. He forced himself to lie still until he calmed, then slowly dressed. Alim was nowhere to be seen. Squinting and pinching the bridge of his nose, Remus left the tent and caught his breath in the scalding air, stepping among the morning shadows. The dawn was sunny and hot, just like the one before and the one before that. Nomads from the caravans sat talking quietly amongst themselves, arranging their belongings, gathering their livestock, and brewing fragrant mint teas.

Remus walked up to a camel who stood nearby, patiently grazing.

"Good morning," Remus greeted the animal. He reached up and petted the methodically masticating jaw. "I had the most unsettling dream. You didn't, perchance, hear anyone scream? No? Well, that's good."

The camel looked him up and down with a gaze of almost superhuman intelligence.

One day, he thought wryly, if I'm lucky, I may learn to approach the world with all the aplomb of a camel. He sighed.

Alim walked past, face twisted with dismay.

Concerned, Remus asked, "Alim, what's wrong? What happened?"

The old wizard glanced him silently, then walked on. Remus started to follow but decided it might be wiser to give Alim a few minutes to collect himself.

He turned back to the camel, still standing patiently beside him. "Oh, to be a ruminant. No need to feel awkward when you can simply chew your cud." He looked back towards Alim's tent, watching the wind swirl eddies of sand, and wondering what had just happened.

The dromedary regarded him from underneath long lashes.

"Exactly, my friend. Although... do you hear that?" There was a sound of soft wailing in the distance.

The camel chewed at him.

Remus walked around the camel, following the sound of low moaning to a small, rust-coloured tent. He looked cautiously around the edge of the entryway.

Several dark-skinned, veiled women were kneeling beside a pallet on which a young man was laid. Remus recognised him as Amal, the nomad Hassam's son. Several of the women were crying, and Kamilah was holding the boy's limp hand.

One of the women looked up when Remus' shadow fell across the scene. She motioned him in closer and began speaking rapidly, keeping her eyes fixed on the ground.

Kamilah translated softly, "She would like to know what has happened to her son. My father does not say."

Remus slowly walked over to the bed. The boy, no more than fourteen or fifteen years old, looked at the top of the tent with a vacant, glassy stare and dilated pupils. His chest rose and fell with metronomic regularity. Remus lifted the boy's hand; his muscles offered no resistance. His skin was cool and clammy to the touch.

The boy had been Kissed. The dementors had taken his soul.

Unable to eat or drink, to feel hunger or thirst, he would not live long. Remus closed his eyes and shook his head. The women around the bed saw, and with his silent verdict, their wailing grew louder. One woman, presumably the mother, threw herself across the body, her breath hitching as she sobbed.

Remus quickly exited the tent. Shoulders hunched, he walked through the camp unaware of his surroundings. He saw nothing, not the stoic livestock, nor the waving banners; he felt nothing, not even the desert sun bearing down on his back. He thought of the icy cold, the screaming memories brought on by the proximity of the dementors. He saw only the boy's blank stare, and he watched the black eyes fade into a stormy grey that looked unseeing up at the world. Remus' stomach turned. No one, no one at all, deserved what had happened to that boy.

"Wait," called a soft voice behind him. Kamilah was quickly approaching. "You know what has happened to him." It was not a question.

"Yes."

"My father will not say."

"I figured."

"The darkness came to the spring three moons ago. The people are afraid that the magic is gone."

Three months ago was perhaps the same time that Peter had passed through the desert.

"It was never here before, the darkness," Kamilah continued. "I see figures in black robes, their faces are hidden. My father has sometimes been able to reach the water, to bring some back, and to stop the people from going too close. He is the only one who can go near them. Most who try return upset, but I have never seen one like this. He was closer to the spring than any of the others. What happened to him?"

"It's not my place..." Remus began uncertainly.

She reached out to him, fingers stopped a hair's breadth from his arm. Her eyes were serious and determined. "You almost reached the water, but you live still. You are not empty, like him. You are different, like my father. Tell me. Is the magic gone from the water? Is it evil now?"

She looked up at Remus, eyes wide and pleading, and he wondered that she could see the dementors as well. He wondered if Alim knew she could see them, and if so, why he refused to tell her what they were.

"No," he said at last, "not gone or evil, just surrounded by something bad."

She nodded and looked at the ground once more, quietly resigned. Slowly, she walked back to the tent of wailing. Remus went to find Alim.

***

"The dementors," he announced, walking briskly among the shadowy hangings and musty furniture. "We have to talk about them. Now."

"By all means," said Alim quietly as though Remus hadn't just stormed into the tent, eyes blazing, demanding answers. "Come, sit."

When Remus had settled himself on a large crimson pillow, Alim spoke again.

"The people here call them what translates generally to, Black Fear. They cannot see the creatures of course, but they can feel them. The Black Fear first arrived several months ago, from the same Wrinkle through which you passed. They have plagued our oasis ever since. I can sometimes hold them off long enough to fetch a little water and warn the lucky ones away from the spring, but no one else can, and I cannot bring enough water for the caravans on their march to Timbuktu. I conjure water for them from sand, but it is not the same; it does not contain the joy of the spring. Of the few who have left to cross the sand without the true water of Letaq, I do not know that any have survived. These creatures, the Black Fear, the dementors, are feeding off our spring, are drinking the joy from our water, and the soul of the wandering people."

"And there is nothing you can do?"

"There are defences."

"The Patronus Charm?"

"Yes, in part. But the Black Fear are many and very strong, and I am the only one here who carries a wand. Are you very familiar with these... dementors?"

"A little. The Ministry keeps them in service, now."

"These fiends are tamed?" Alim asked, not attempting to conceal his shock.

"Not tamed, exactly," Remus replied, shaking his head. "We offer them a supply of human souls to feed on, and they leave the rest of us alone."

Alim looked scandalised. "And how do you decide what souls they are to have?"

"Criminals. We give them the worst of our criminals."

Alim looked at him shrewdly. "And do you approve of this?"

Remus paused. "I... I don't know. For some crimes, perhaps." The words sounded hollow, even to his own ears.

Alim shrugged, shrewd and sceptical. "You control them, how?"

"I don't." The only wizard that Remus had ever seen communicating with a dementor was Alastor Moody, who claimed that they listened to him because, with his magical new eye, he could tell the world what was under their robes. Remus suspected, however, that the reason was simpler. Moody was an honest man, with a limitless capability for accepting his own fears. There was little the dementors could use against him. Of course Moody was not the only wizard who could speak to them. There were the Ministry-dementor Liaisons. There was also Voldemort.

Remus spoke slowly, letting the ideas guide his words. "There were, some years ago, a number of these creatures that left our Ministry. They served a new master, a Dark Wizard who gave them greater freedom and more opportunities to satisfy their... appetites."

Remus thought of Peter's erratic trail, the trail that had led him here in the first place. "I came here in search of a friend who passed this way several months ago, and I wonder..." He paused. "You said these dementors came from the same Wrinkle I did. Perhaps they were following him, on the orders of this Dark Wizard or one of his subordinates, and were distracted from their search by the discovery of your spring..."

Alim sighed heavily and closed his eyes.

"Do you think," offered Remus, "that with two wands, we can drive them away?"

Alim looked torn somewhere between relief and refusal. "I couldn't ask," he said, voice full of self-reproach.

Remus looked at Alim for a long moment, utterly confused. "Of course you could. I would have helped, from the day I arrived, if you had asked," he said quietly. "You never seemed to want..."

"Ah, and therein lies the folly of an old man," Alim said soberly. "It is not always easy, I suppose, to ask for help, even when one knows he needs it. Especially because... Even when... that boy." He looked momentarily lost. "There is something more I haven't told you." Alim spoke slowly, as though confessing some great sin. "You fought the Dark Wizard so recently terrorising your home."

"I did," Remus agreed quietly.

"Your family? Your friends?"

Remus silently nodded, his voice lost somewhere deep in his chest.

"You won, but you lost as well." Alim paused. "An old friend, a leader of the light, asked my help in this matter. I refused him, believing I was more needed here, that the evil could never reach my valley, and that if it did, I would be able to protect her alone." Silence filled the tent once more; beyond, Remus could hear the faint wailing and sounds of life moving on in the camp. "I was wrong."

***

Remus agreed to help Alim drive the dementors away, though he did not know how much help he would be. The dementors at this spring were likely stronger, from feeding on its joy, than any Remus had seen before, and he certainly hadn't fared well in their last encounter.

He began to practice the Patronus charm immediately.

"Have you ever created a Patronus?" Alim asked, speaking more openly now than ever before, his conscience unburdened at last.

"Yes, but really, I'm no expert at fighting dementors." He held out his wand. "Expecto Patronum," Remus said, hoping to awe his host with the appearance of the great silvery Patronus. Nothing happened.

Alim frowned. "The secret to making a strong Patronus, is a very happy memory--"

"I know," Remus interrupted quickly.

"You must hold your memory and live it as you cast the charm." Alim smiled good-naturedly. Remus swallowed and closed his eyes.

A very happy memory. He'd had a lot of those, once upon a time. One of them would have to work.

"Expecto Patronum!" he said again.

Nothing happened.

"It is not a problem," Alim said, biting off a square of the newly made chocolate, and letting its aromas tantalise Remus' nose. "Try again."

***

After a day of practice out on the dunes, Remus retired to Alim's tent, exhausted. He had made little progress, producing nothing more than a shiny mist, and that without the threat of an actual dementor in the vicinity.

He took the evening to wander around the various encampments in the valley, carefully skirting the wailing tent. The too-familiar sound of a mother's grief, universal in pitch and timbre, would not help him to conjure a proper Patronus.

Instead, Remus watched the nomads walk to and fro, blue turbans bobbing. He watched them clean their harnesses and fetch water for their camels. However difficult it was for Alim to retrieve water for himself and his daughter, or to conjure every drop from the desert sand, he always seemed to have a ready bucket for the traveller in need. Remus wondered how much sand had been transfigured in this valley over the past three months.

There would be no need, Remus reminded himself, if he could help Alim drive the dementors away. He scanned his memory yet again for a truly happy moment. And again, he saw the same images in his mind: three boys, glowing with pride at their ingenuity. He saw them change, felt himself slip away with his own transformation, and inexplicably return. They approached carefully, sniffing. He grinned, they played and ran and howled at the moonlight. Then other images came, irreversibly bound to this: small betrayals, little absences, raging fights, broken glass, smoking ruins, and a violent, gaping emptiness where the three smiles had once been glowing.

He chased away the shades; he had to find a truly happy memory.

That night, while Alim was conjuring the next day's water, Kamilah sat lightly on the end of Remus' pallet. He turned his intense stare from the billowing roof above, to her sombre, silent face.

"My father says you will help us."

Remus shrugged. "What wouldn't I do for chocolate?" Then he paused, and took a deep breath. "I haven't been very successful yet."

"He says that you cannot help until you find a pleasant memory."

Remus said nothing, but smiled vaguely. It was not the whole truth, not by a long shot, but it was not wrong, either. He had thought of the magical chocolate flooding his system, of the day he received his Hogwarts letter, of flying on a borrowed broomstick, of Christmases with family, a soft, sagging couch, the first time he'd music that spoke to something deep inside, and always arrived back at the three excited faces.

"Kamilah, what would you think of, if I asked you to remember your happiest moment ever?"

Kamilah smiled at him, that mysterious smile of the desert wanderer. "I might think of the day I came to this valley."

"Weren't you just a baby?"

"One cannot forget the first sip of the water." She paused for a moment. "I would think of my father, perhaps." She stopped again, looking at Remus with a long, unblinking stare, then cast her eyes to the ground. "I would think," she whispered into her veils, "of the day, my father carried a strange man to our tent, of the day I cared for him, before he woke from the dreams of the Black Fear. I watched him sleep, and his face told me of places far away, of a world beyond the dunes."

Remus almost choked on his tea. "Really?" he asked in a strangled voice.

She nodded silently. "I would think of the joy I felt to learn I could speak to him, though it should be impossible. I would remember the certainty I feel when I see him that he has come to save my home, and my people." She stopped and looked up at him. "And for that, I will ever be in his debt."

"Really?" Remus asked again.

She nodded solemnly. "But I know that he thinks of another."

Remus stared at her. "No. You can't."

"I do. I have seen him sleep. My father says that this man cannot find a happy memory. I reply, 'That cannot be'. I have watched you sleeping." She said with a mysterious half-smile. "In sleep, you smile as a person who has known great happiness."

Remus opened his mouth to protest, to qualify, to explain, but no words came out.

In a single, swift movement, Kamilah stood and looked down on him, a sad mist clouding her exotic eyes. "Remember, Mr. Lupin, though the Black Fear feed from our spring, its magic is not gone."

With that she slipped from the room as silently as she had entered, veils trailing behind. Remus watched her go, thinking about her words, and knew, with the certainty of a camel, that she was right.

***

The following day, Alim and Remus Lupin walked towards the spring armed only with their wands. The desert heat beat down on their shoulders. As they approached the swaying palms of the oasis, darkness began to fall. Remus closed his eyes, and focused on the distant warmth of the sun. He remembered three boys showing him their secret. Scratching behind the giant dog ears, knowing that he wouldn't be alone...

"Expecto Patronum!" he shouted at the night.

Beside him Alim echoed the spell.

Two large silver shapes burst from the wands and charged down the black hooded figures gliding out from between the palms. Remus could have whooped with joy if the spell didn't require so much of his concentration. It was working. The pterodactyl-sized hawk and lunging wolf were chasing the dementors away.

The two wizards slowly advanced on the spring.

Alim reached the bubbling fount first, wand whipping in all directions, wiry muscles bulging, and splashed the clear cool water over his face.

"Now," he announced, a triumphant light in his eyes, "we destroy them."

"Can't be done," Remus panted, his voice quavering.

"Taste the water, and you will understand."

Remus stepped closer to the spring and little droplets splashed his sunburned skin. He wetted dry lips and swallowed a mouthful of liquid joy. Laughing out loud, even as the dementors regrouped, he understood. Alim winked.

As a pair, their wands flicked back and forth to different points on the horizon. Wordlessly they directed the Patronuses, whose silver light grew brighter every minute. Remus saw the wolf enter a black cloak, and when it left, the fabric was formless lying in a heap on the ground. One by one, the dementors fell and, with every loss, the sun grew a little brighter. Remus' Partonus howled as the last dementor fell, then returned to his side.

He looked into the eyes of the she-wolf, and mouthed the words, Thank you. He reached up a hand to scratch behind her ears, and the form dissolved into a silver mist.

Remus turned towards Alim, now bidding farewell to his hawk, and laughed.

"You were right," he said.

"Thank you, Remus Lupin, for helping me to save our spring." His black eyes were shining in the light of the sun off the water. "If you ever have need of anything, only ask, and I will do what I can to help. Now, you will continue to search for your friend?"

"Yes"

"I cannot offer you anything? My daughter?"

Remus swallowed audibly. "Er, no. Thank you."

"She is a very beautiful girl. You are a powerful wizard."

Remus stammered something incoherent.

"Ha! Ha!" Alim laughed like a herd of happy hippogriffs. "My friend, you take an old man too seriously."

Remus exhaled, then decided to ask the old man something that had been troubling him. "You do know what she is, don't you?"

Alim nodded once. "I do."

"And you haven't sent her to be trained?"

"I cannot bear to part with her."

Remus paused. "Dumbledore, you know, is Headmaster at Hogwarts School. She could be with other witches and wizards there, and learn. Then, perhaps, she could return here. These are her people, too."

Alim smiled sadly at him. "I will consider it. I had hoped that, perhaps, you would stay to teach her. But you have others in need of your help, I suppose. She will follow her own path, a little sadder, for a time, for not walking it with you."

Remus took a deep breath, relieved. He removed the Remembrall from his pocket, and held it up.

"Was he here?"

The light shone from the bubbling spring to a point in the desert sand where it disappeared once more. Another Wrinkle.

"That's where I am going," he said.

"Ah," said Alim sagely, "Your friend passed into the cold. It is where we keep the ice. Come, that way is a long journey, and I have something that may help you on your quest. Take one last meal with us before you leave."

***

That night, Remus joined in the singing and dancing around the bonfire. Joy was in the air as a canteen of the water of Letaq was passed from hand to hand. Flames licked the night sky, and the faces around the fire were smiling in wide, toothy grins. Shukran, they said repeatedly to Remus, Thank You.

Kamilah spoke to him once that evening.

"I knew you would save us," she said, though her wide smile did not quite reach her eyes. "But now you are leaving."

Remus nodded.

"You must go?"

Remus smiled sadly back. "There is something I have to finish."

She looked down at the sand and asked shyly, "What about the things you leave unfinished here?"

Remus did not know how to respond.

"My father says I am like you and like him."

"You are."

"How do you know?"

"You could see the dementors, the Black Fear, for one thing. For another, there is your talent for language; it is a rare gift among people like us."

"People like us," she repeated, tasting the words. "My father says I may study, learn magic, and one day become guardian of the spring."

"You will make him proud."

"There are many things I still wish to know." Her eyes were pleading with him, searching for the words that would make him stay.

"I've little doubt you will learn everything you want," Remus replied as gently as he could.

She looked down. "People like us," she whispered again. Suddenly, she looked up at Remus, eyes wide, lifting a soft, delicate finger towards the silver burns on his throat. "Did people like us do this to you?"

Remus flinched away, gingerly touching his own skin. Despite the healing charms, it still stung. "You won't ever have to worry about those," he told her, quietly.

***

Remus bid goodbye to Alim the following morning.

"There is nothing I can give you for your journey?" Alim asked.

"No, you have given me more than enough."

"There is something you may find useful." He rummaged around the same large trunk in which his mission was kept. Triumphantly, he revealed a large folded parchment and handed it to Remus.

"Thank you." Remus unfolded the old, yellowed parchment and stared in wonder at a map of the world centred on the Pacific Ocean. Pulsing, opalescent disks flickered at even intervals around a circle in the centre and at various points on the land and water. There was a tight arrangement of disks in the Sahara, overlooking the Spring of Letaq. Remus touched one, drawn to its shining surface, and watched as a second disk lit halfway around the world.

"Your friend seems to have known much about the Wrinkles."

"He was mapping them before... before he disappeared."

"Ah," said Alim, "I suspected as much." He smiled at Remus' confusion. "Every hundred years or so, some English official officially cleans out the old maps. Then another officially notices that there is no map of the world's Wrinkles, and sends some eager novice to map them. This is the last map that was made. I saved a copy, should the original ever officially disappear."

"It was you last time, who mapped the Wrinkles." Remus said. "That's how you found this place."

Alim smiled, and Remus wondered if perhaps this was the kind of man that Peter would have become, if the world hadn't gotten in the way. He thanked Alim again and prepared to depart.

***

Before he left, however, he stopped at the spring. There was no cold, no fear, and only the five black cloaks littering the sand told the story of the darkness that had been driven from there.

Remus bent down and lifted one of the cloaks. It was heavier than he expected, but otherwise, just a normal piece of sturdy wool. He felt no evil, no remnant of the thing that had lived inside this innocent black garb. He almost smiled at the anticlimactic end of creatures that caused so much pain. Slowly, he ran his hand around the border of the cloak.

On the rough hem, his fingers encountered something uneven, raised from the surface of the cloth. It was an embroidered insignia, not a skull and snake as he had expected, but the Fountain of Magical Brethren, the symbol of the British Ministry of Magic. Remus stared at the insignia for a long moment, then severed the little patch from the cloth and placed it in his case. He had already delayed too long; hopefully Peter would make these mysteries clear in time.

According to Alim's map, the next Wrinkle would take him to the Kamchatka peninsula in the Russian Far East. With a deep breath and a question of how many days he would lose this time, Remus stepped into another river of Space.